Catholic or not?

"To be a Catholic, you must have a Baptism or Reception Certificate from a Catholic Church." So says the application form for the St John Fisher Catholic Primary School. I suppose that when making application to a "catholic school" you might have to accept its definition of what "catholic" means, but I am not entirely comfortable with the Roman Church's appropriation of the word. I've always thought it rather odd to see a couple of signposts in a town, one saying "Parish Church" and the other saying "Catholic Church". More seriously, accepting other people's terms can be difficult. We recognise going into non-European Union countries that we are at least "other passports" and may even be "aliens". (I couldn't bear it if I could no longer join the EU queue when travelling into mainland Europe.)

If sent to prison, though still pleading innocence, we may be considered guilty and a prisoner rather than innocent and free. There were plenty of German Jews who thought of themselves as German and never gave a thought to being Jewish until the Nazis put a label on them. An ordained minister from an evangelical church in the City, who undoubtedly would not call himself a priest though the bishop would have used the words in the rite, recently spoke of those present "who know the Lord Jesus Christ", with a pretty clear message that some of us didn't.

The thesis that I want to propose is that within the Christian community people should be allowed to define themselves as long as that self-definition does not exclude others, but I see at once that that will not work. I have already created a problem by referring to the "Christian" community for some who would say that they are Christian would swiftly exclude a lot of people who make the same claim. And the catholic school does the same, indicating that you cannot be catholic unless you are catholic in their terms. If asked whether St Bartholomew's is catholic or protestant I usually reply that it is Church of England and that the CofE says of herself that she is part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. If I put up a full descriptive label, listing the characteristics of St Bartholomew's (and giving percentages, like food labels), I would need to say Anglican, episcopal, catholic, orthodox, evangelical, biblical, apostolic, liberal, liturgical, and more and more, until it became meaningless. So perhaps I should just resist all labelling. Except that I can't when someone wants to get a child into a school and I have to answer specific multiple-choice questions and I don't want to choose any of the answers provided.

Catholic - yes, as I understand it. Non-catholic - yes, as you understand it.

Orthodoxy

Early last week I was in one of the City churches where I picked up a leaflet that invited me to join the community there in worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ. Now my first response to that was to say “surely we worship God?” We see it in the opening line of the Prayer Book canticle “Te Deum laudamus” — “We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting.” In the same way the “Gloria in excelsis” says “We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship, we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.” So it might seem that worship is directed not only to God but quite specifically to God the Father. We find it also in the Eucharistic prayer concluding, in a form also found in the Prayer Book “through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen.” Alongside this we must set the words of the creed “Quicunque vult” — the so-called Athanasian Creed — which tells us “the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God” and affirms “that in all things the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.”

Let us turn now to the New Testament. The Magi on coming into the house and finding the child with Mary his mother fell down and worshipped him. The NRSV seems uncomfortable with this and translates it as “paid him homage”. Actually this is a reasonable translation, for the Greek word proskuneo comes from the verb to kiss, kuneo, and means to do reverence or homage by kissing the hand, and is extended by analogy to mean divine homage, worship or adoration. It is the verb Jesus uses when he talks to the woman of Samaria about worship. It is also the word he uses when he tells the devil “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” The disciples in the boat, having encountered Jesus walking on the water, worshipped him and declared him truly God’s Son. The blind man who received his sight, in John’s Gospel, called him “Lord” ands worshipped him. The risen Christ was worshipped by the women and by the disciples in the last chapter of Matthew. The Greek verb is uniformly in Latin by adoro.

Now I think we can see from the liturgy and from this brief survey of gospel texts that God is to be worshipped, in the sense of the formal religious act of worship, but that Jesus is clearly worshipped in person in the gospels because he is seen to be the Son of God and worthy of the same reverence that God himself receives. Doctrinally, the teaching of the Church stresses the unity of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and expects both prayer and worship, in general, to be addressed to God. It is more specifically addressed to the Father. It is sometimes said that we pray in a Trinitarian context, to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Prayer Book catechism posing the question about what is desired when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, answers “I desire my Lord God our heavenly Father, who is the giver of all goodness, to send his grace unto me, and to all people, that we may worship him, serve him, and obey him, as we ought to do.” And this is the clear position of the Church.

It is certainly the case that in practice we address some few liturgical prayers directly to Christ and that we reverence the sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist. At the stations of the cross, we say “We adore thee, O Christ and we bless thee”. So undoubtedly in devotion worship is given to God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, though hardly ever to the Holy Spirit, though the Nicene Creed says quite clearly, in relation to the Holy Ghost, “who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified”.

I think it unlikely that we would put out a notice that says “Come and join us in worshipping the Holy Spirit” or indeed in “worshipping the Father” or even in “worshipping God the Son”. Even though we do it in devotional terms, we don’t generally say, “let us worship the Lord Jesus Christ.” We say “Let us worship God” and the key to this is surely there in the creed – the word “together”. We worship and glorify God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, together. This, it seems to me is the correct Christian practice and hence “right worship”. The word for “right worship” is orthodoxy, to give glory correctly, and I think that we should stick to that.

Carry on Serving!

Last evening we had the Candlemas ceremonies, Solemn Eucharist and a servers' meeting with supper. There was a small but excellent choir and lovely music, a dozen servers, and a congregation of eight or ten, no more, but weekday evenings are rather unusual for us. Gathered in the Cloister for the blessing of the candles, the thurible, invigorated by Nicholas's swinging, burst into flame. The organic charcoal from Kew has a tendency to do that and we have a little water squirter for putting out the flames, only Nicholas had declined Beatrice's suggestion that he employ it! It was more like the Easter Vigil with the new fire than like Candlemas; actually I have more trouble lighting the new fire.

As we usually observe Candlemas on a Sunday, we were a bit uncertain of the makeshift ceremonial, so no-one moved to present the candles for blessing, the procession was a bit too quick, and we were pleasantly chaotic arriving in the Lady Chapel, which is really too dark for unfamiliar liturgy. Anyway, we managed, with occasional moments of uncertainty and comedy, and eventually settled to red wine, cold meats and cheese back in the slightly chilly Cloister.

I had come across the notes from a servers' meeting held in February 2002, when less than half of the current team were in place. Some of the issues were the same - when to light candles and in what order, not standing chatting in the ambulatory before the service, being alert to both celebrant and MC. Some things had changed. The altar rail was only put in two Christmases ago and the closing and opening of the gates (especially the latter) seems to amuse the congregation. How many servers does it take to open gates? Well, it depends if the gates are properly aligned, for otherwise the bolt sticks, and then it might need three or four servers.

Nonetheless, we have a fine, committed and dignified serving team, and if it all goes wrong, only we seem to notice, so we just carry on serving.

Interviewed in a dressing gown!

Well, it was early and it was radio, so I'm not quite sure why I felt I had to get up and be showered before BBC Radio London called. It made me feel better anyway and I sucked a cough sweet for a bit because that annoying little cough, from which we all seem to be suffering, wouldn't go away.

Today I was, rather unexpectedly, the official spokesman of the City of London Corporation commenting on the future of the City YMCA building which will return to the City's possession when it is vacated in September this year. There are 255 bedrooms in the building erected in 1971 to house the City's students and trainees, such as those at secretarial college. Although it was partially refurbished in the 1990s, it needs major works now. The Community and Children's Services Committee, which I chair, will look at the contribution it could bring to the overall provision of housing. I hope it can meet some of our need for social and affordable housing.

Lessons from History: Wat Tyler and Occupy

In 1381 June 15th was a Saturday. The weather was warm and Smithfield was full not only of the great and horrible smells and mortal abominations for which it was then infamous but also with the rebels, the peasants who had revolted against the poll-tax and other oppressive measures of King Richard II and his court. We know nothing of the character or previous career of the leader of this rebellion; he is known to us as Wat Tyler. It was the hour of Vespers and the great Priory bell, lost in the Great Fire, would have rung out to call the canons to their prayers. They were, however, probably more interested in what was going on outside for before the doors of the church was the young King on his horse and at his side William Walworth, Mayor of London. If the King was afraid, he did not show it, though he had already been roundly abused by the rebels and they, only the day before, had penetrated the Tower of London and beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury, whose head was now mounted over London Bridge.

Tyler crossed Smithfield to join the group of horseman surrounding the King’s person. Accounts vary as to what happened in the next two minutes. By one version Tyler put forward the rebels’ demands for the abolition of outlawry, the disendowment of the Church, and for free forestry. Whatever his demands he treated the King with such friendly familiarity, and his attendants with such contempt, that tempers flared, and the nobles answered him back roundly. They began, perhaps, to quarrel with him and, as Walworth determined to arrest him, Tyler drew his weapon. Walworth was wearing armour beneath his official robes and, thus defended, struck back at Tyler.

Tyler was dragged across Smithfield by his horse. The rebels now knew what had happened. A thousand long-bows were bent in the direction of the King and his party; a thousand arrows aimed at him. The danger was awful. The boy king never lost his head but with the coolness of an old general quelling a mutiny he rode alone across the square and told the rebels “I am your leader.” It was enough to disarm them.

Tyler, not yet dead, was dragged by arms and legs either into the Priory Church or else, which is more likely, into the nearby Hospital. Walworth, when he discovered this, had him dragged back out into the market place and cut off his head there. By evening it replaced the Archbishop’s head over London Bridge.

This was not one of the great moments in our history. The rebels were vicious and uncontrolled, doing to death those who were perceived as having responsibility for the wrongs they suffered, real or imagined. The Mayor set up a block on Cheapside and every peasant found in London was executed there together with any rioters falling under his jurisdiction. The King began a bloody assize in Essex and the fighting Bishop of Norwich, brother to a captain of Italian mercenaries, established peace in East Anglia by force of arms.

We cannot, of course, tell whose side we would have taken in the rebellion. At its heart was a demand for personal freedom and for the emancipation of serfs. The freedoms that the rebels wanted were well below the level of freedom that we enjoy. The process of releasing serfs did proceed but it was slow and the last remains of serfage were not swept away until the Tudor monarchs. Under James the First of England and Sixth of Scotland it became a maxim that every Englishman was free. It would take longer for every Englishwoman to be free.

1381 was a terrible year but the Rising was itself a sign of national energy, a sign of the independence and self-respect in medieval peasants, from whom three-quarters of our race, of all classes and in every continent, are descended. In England that same spirit has generated a continuous resistance to tyranny of all sorts.

The lessons of history are rarely clear or straight-forward. Noble and peasant alike subscribed to the doctrines of a Redeemer who bade us love our neighbours and our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us, but that religious belief did not prevent oppression or stay the hand of violent revolt or more violent suppression of the rising.

We count ourselves as civilised men and women, inheritors of the freedoms won by hard struggle and protected from enemies within and without over the centuries. We must be grateful for that. We are also privileged, sometimes by birth and inheritance, more often by skills and application. And that to should be a cause for thankfulness. We may well count ourselves as those who subscribe to values embodied in Christian moral teaching if not to the tenets of faith, or else we may uphold equally demanding humanistic values. But we know as well that we are capable of ignoring those values because of self-interest, of seeking to protect our privileges against the less privileged, and that social, cultural and racial tensions can erode these same civilised values.

Events of enormous proportions and consequences, far beyond our control, may make us feel impotent, but civilised values are maintained by relatively small acts, acts of which we are all capable. Each of us is able to play our part in the social, political and religious structures of our nation, in our communities, and in our trade. Each of us is able to vote in elections, to find opportunities for personal service, to support good causes, and to ensure that personally and professionally we do not discriminate against others because of background, gender, disability, race, or religion but rather try to increase our understanding of what is foreign to us. In the City we uphold these hard-won freedoms and continue to believe that there must be opportunities for those who can make much of them as well as protection and support for those genuinely unable to provide for themselves.

Smithfield has seen much blood, much injustice, much cruelty through the centuries, just as it has seen faith, courage and commitment. The two can so easily exist together that we must ever be vigilant and active in pursuing what is good and right and just and render to God humble and hearty thanks for all his goodness and loving-kindness.

Does it matter what you believe?

"Congratulations! You're welcome to marry in church whatever your beliefs, whether or not you are baptised and whether or not you go to church. And, marrying in church has never been easier thanks to a change in the law which means you now have more churches to choose from."

I wonder if you can guess the source of this quotation? Who on earth would claim that belief was irrelevant to marriage, to making solemn vows in the presence of God, to invoking the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Yes, you have it - it is the Church of England, of course.
"http://www.cofe.anglican.org/lifeevents/weddings"

Dust to Dust

I went to a service yesterday in a City church which, I understood, had been expensively and extensively restored. It looked exactly the same as when I was last in there - damp, dirty and decaying. The occasion of my visit was the funeral of a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a distinguished authority on arms and armour. It was an odd sort of service, in the modern style, combining elements of funeral and memorial services - entry and exit music by Wagner, three hymns, Vaughan Williams' anthem "Let us now praise famous men", three lessons, a long address solely concerned with the achievements of the deceased, and a delightful sonata for flute and bassoon. Of the address, a colleague observed at the post-funeral reception that it said nothing about the character of man, and especially nothing of his famed irascibility, concerning which stories abounded.

Funerals in the City cannot be followed immediately by interment or cremation. There is a long journey to the nearest crematorium or cemetery. It has become usual to say a form of the committal before the hearse takes the coffin away. At Saint Bartholomew's we do that, with all the congregation gathered on the pavement, as the coffin is loaded into the hearse, and then we wait for it to be driven away, passing out of sight as it goes towards the Central Markets.

At yesterday's funeral the committal was said while the coffin was still standing of the trestles in the midst of the church with the solemn words "we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust". The Prayer Book rubrics are quite explicit: Then, while the earth shall be cast upon the body by some standing by, the priest shall say". It makes no sense at all to use the words of committal in the precise Prayer Book form in a completely different and unanticipated context. But then some very odd things happen in the City of London and the Archdeacon seemed to think it was all quite normal!